Code Lyoko Final Mission
by Lost Lantean
Summary: My version of the episode fight to the finish. I'm new here please review and be kind. If liked there could be more.


**Lyoko, Sector 5, Celestial dome, Lyoko access terminal, Saturday**: In front of Aelita is a familiar glowing, purple sphere. To her horror two flying mantas were pouring laser fine into it, causing it to flicker and shudder with each impact. "Daddy, you have to get out of here" cries Aelita . When she doesn't get a response she steps away from the terminal. "Energy field!" she yells sending two pink orbs at her father's attackers. With a quick maneuver both mantas dodge her attacks. She continues firing away, watching as her father weakens with each shot, growing more desperate as orb after orb miss their target. Giving up she screams out, begging her father to save himself, to leave while he can. A feeling of helplessness overwhelms her and she desperately calls to Jeremy for help. Begging him to do something, anything to help her father. With no response she calls out for Odd, Ulrich and finally Yumi. No one answers and she collapses, watching helplessly as the glowing sphere flickers one last time and explodes into a shower of light and rapidly disappearing data. "**DADDY NO!**" she screams out, dropping to her knees and beginning to cry.

Suddenly she is in her dorm room, soaked in sweat with tears in her eyes. Realizing it was a nightmare she tries to calm herself down. A look around her room reveals a picture of her and Jeremy sharing a laugh at a local fair. She draws strength and comfort from the memory, resolving to go see Jeremy as soon as the morning "stay-out" time passes. Her alarm shows 5:30 AM, sighing she considers sneaking down and letting herself into Jeremy's room (each has a copy of the other's key for emergencies). No she decides - she can handle a couple of hours and this would be a poor reason to get caught. Instead she packs up her shower bag and heads out. "A hot shower with no competition, though a poor substitute for Jeremy's presence, will have to do for now" she thinks while walking down the deserted hall.

* * *

Jeremy wakes to a combination of his alarm and a knock on his door. "Hold on" he calls out while searching for his glasses. Finding them he silences his alarm and then opens his door. A smile quickly spreads across his face at the sight of his pink haired angel "Good morning" he says brightly. At the sound of Aelita's voice, his face drops. "Another one?" he asks quietly.

She is pulled into his room, his touch more comforting than she had imagined. She takes a seat on his bed and Jeremy sits down beside her. Placing an arm around her shoulder and pulling her against his side he asks "What's wrong princess?" with his gentlest voice.

"I had a dream about our final mission, I watched my dad..." her voice trailed off.

"It's ok, I'm here for you" Jeremy says softly.

"I... I... watched him die... I tried to save him" She sobbed. "I called for you and got no response... No one was there to help..."

Jeremy pulled her closer, squeezing her into him. "I'm here, and I'll always be here for you Aelita"

"I know, but in my dream you weren't there..." Her voice trailed off again and Jeremy took the opportunity to speak.

"Aelita, considering what you dreamt it's only natural to feel trapped and alone. But it was only a dream"

"And just in case it is a premonition" Jeremy continued, remembering that the last time she came to him with these types of dreams they had become very real problems. "We'll need to alter our plans and maybe come up with a new trick in case XANA pulls one of his own"

Aelita looked into her friends eyes and saw Love, warmth and, most importantly right now, sincerity. He wouldn't shrug this off as a childish bad dream, wouldn't ignore her feelings. And that was the most comforting thought she had all day.

She pulled away slowly, realizing that he would need some time to shower and change before classes.

"Thank you, Jeremy. You don't know what that means to me." She said as she got up to leave.

"Actually, I think I have some idea. And don't forget my cell phone is always on. Any time you need to talk"

"I needed more than just to talk, but thank you"

"You're always welcome princess"

Jeremy waited a bit so that he would be there should Aelita come back. When she didn't, he gathered his shower kit and made the trek to the Boy's shower room. His mind was filled with theories about why Franz Hopper would sacrifice himself like that and a question: Could a program on Lyoko be undeleted? At first blush it seemed silly, after all the computer did everything in memory, there was no hard disk to store data on. On the other hand even the fastest and most heavily loaded computer needed a finite amount of time to mark memory as free and then overwrite it. Maybe he could 'cage' Franz Hopper's program and allocate it's memory to a dummy process before the system gets a chance to overwrite it. Actually getting CPU time and memory on the supercomputer was trivial, getting the level of access he would need to Lyoko's core programming (equivalent to kernel level [ring 0] access on a modern Windows or Linux system) would be a problem. Not unsolvable, since he needed that level of access for a certain other program, but very difficult.

* * *

Odd and Ulrich had to dodge Jeremy as he walked down the hallway lost in his thoughts. "Hey Jer" Odd called out "you might want to watch where you're going." As Jeremy walked on he nodded to Odd, causing Ulrich to wonder whether there was a problem with the anti-Xana program or a problem with a certain girl who happened to have pink hair. They followed Jeremy to the shower room and each took their respective stalls. Still somewhere other than the here and now Jeremy went through the motions of showering and brushing his teeth before heading out the door and returning to his room. Ulrich and Odd exchanged quizzical looks then followed him back to his room.

"Ok, what's up Einstein?" asked Odd.

Sighing, Jeremy answered "Aelita had another nightmare, she watched as her father died in front of her"

Both Odd and Ulrich had horrified looks on their faces. "So that's what has your complete and undivided attention this morning" said Ulrich.

"Yeah" was all Jeremy said.

"It was just a nightmare, I'm sure it'll be just fine" Odd stated, hoping to get Jeremy to relax. Instead he turned around and with a mix of bitterness and anger said "Does anyone remember her first batch of nightmares, we ignored them and missed a chance to find Franz Hoppers diary. Then she had more nightmares and we waited until they got so bad that she nearly drowned to deal with them. Her next nightmare resulted in her trying to commit suicide so that XANA wouldn't get out of the supercomputer, so that she could save all of our lives" Jeremy shuddered at the memory of that night, he'd found Aelita nearly dead and after reviving her had to watch her die at Xana's hands. Her father came in to save her, returning her memories in the process and freeing her from the supercomputer. Unfortunately, it didn't free her, or them, from XANA and he had to marshal his troops to continue the fight. The memories didn't do his mood any good but they had stopped his rant. Taking a moment to look around he noticed a guilty and sorrowful look in both of his friends faces. He started to say he was sorry for yelling but was cut off by Ulrich. "You didn't need to yell at us, but you're right we should be taking Aelita's nightmare seriously."

"And even if you two really did decide that she was being a baby about her bad dreams, it's no excuse for making light of either Aelita's pain or Jeremy's desire to help her get through it".

Ulrich and Odd turned at the sound of Yumi intruding on their conversation. "Now we all need to leave and give Jeremy some time to get ready for morning classes... We'll meet you in the cafeteria for breakfast when you're ready Jeremy."

"Thanks Yumi" was Jeremy's reply.

* * *

**Cafeteria, Kadic Academy:** The group is sitting at their normal table Jeremy, Aelita, and William on one side with Yumi, Ulrich and Odd on the other. Yumi and Ulrich were giving William the evil eye while Odd sat with a neutral expression. Aelita had welcomed him and made the seat next to her available so he could sit down and eat with them. Looking over at his two friends Jeremy simply pointed out, again, that his actions weren't entirely William's fault. When that didn't work he asked Aelita for help with a program to capture recently freed memory within Lyoko's system. At the quizzical expression he got back he explained that he was going to try and make an undelete program for Lyoko. Her eyes brightened as she realized just what such a program would be used for. Since no one else at the table picked up on the conversation she explained her nightmare and that Jeremy was trying to save her father from permanent deletion on Lyoko.

Yumi picked up the conversation by asking the obvious question "If something is deleted on a computer then it's gone forever, right."

"Wrong" answered Jeremy "Computers don't do anything with deleted data, it's too detrimental to performance. So instead it just marks the info as gone and moves on"

Aelita took a look at Odd and seeing as he still didn't get it she tried to elaborate, explaining that "a hard drive is like a book with a table of contents. When you create a file you look for a blank page, mark the page number and name in the table of contents then start writing on that page. When you delete a file you have two options: 1) white-out the entry in the table of contents or 2) white out the entire page you used then go back and white out the entry in the table of contents. Since option 1 is faster that's what most computers do. If we can get to the memory before the operating system needs to apply whiteout then we can recover the original contents."

She turned back to Jeremy and said "Jeremy this is our project for the afternoon, isn't it?".

"Unless you don't want it to be, but I'll need your help if we're to have any chance of success."

"Then we'll have lunch and head to the factory right after." Replied Aelita.

"Deal" said Jeremy.

* * *

**Somewhere on the internet, approximately seven hours after Jeremy and Aelita set to work:** Franz Hopper had avoided another of XANA's sweeps and now had as many as a few hours to as few as 20 minutes of freedom before he would have to move again. Luckily, the computer network he was currently hiding in had decent firewall technology which would give him a couple minutes of advance notice of XANA's next sweep. He decided to use the time to check in on his daughter. Reaching out across the network he felt for Lyoko's presence and keyed himself into the system. Accessing the cameras and microphones in his lab he noticed that Aelita was sitting in Jermey's lap on his chair, working happily on a program. He greeted the sight with mixed emotions. He was happy to see his daughter so happy but a bit frightened that a boy was behind that happiness. Truth be told he was also a bit envious that someone else had found the key to her heart. A bit of pride was also present as he realized, again, that his daughter was just as smart as he was. Not only that but she could be strong, facing down XANA and even her friends to do what she thought was right. There was also sadness as he realized that his daughter no longer needed him. True she wanted to have him in her life, but she really didn't _need_ him anymore. Even if he was gone there would be Jeremy and his little gang of friends to protect, nurture, love and even provide for her.

Forcing his various emotions to the back of his mind he focused on accessing the currently active window. The window was a code editor and Franz skimmed the program noticing that while Aelita was currently the one typing, a large part of that program was in Jeremy's coding style. Eavesdropping on the couple's conversation had quickly filled him in on the purpose of the program and while he was impressed by their combined ingenuity he was also saddened. What they didn't, and couldn't know was that their program could not retrieve him if he was ever deleted. There were two reasons for that: first, Lyoko didn't and couldn't know where all of his allocated memory was at any given time. Second, his memory was encrypted and even with his entire program at hand and the full power of the supercomputer his data couldn't be decrypted in either kids' lifetime. Those two precautions had enabled him to survive XANA's betrayal and continue to live hidden right under XANA's proverbial nose. Aelita had similar encryption protecting her digital form but because she had a proper human form her full DNA could be used by the scanners as a decryption code, making it possible to materialize her into a human being. Franz however had no complete DNA profile to use with the scanners, it was lost when XANA had destroyed Lyoko. Getting himself out of the computer, though not impossible, could only occur if he was conscious and cooperating because he could rebuild his DNA and decrypt his own data.

He wanted to contact Aelita and tell her to stop wasting time on the program but two things stopped him. The program might be useful if any of the warriors were deleted or even if Aelita herself were deleted since they could be sent directly to the scanners for materialization. The second reason was the network firewall was registering unusual activity. It was time to go and he reluctantly closed and scrambled his connections to Lyoko and his daughter. He took off, plunging back into the network and began looking for another safe hiding spot.

* * *

**Factory, computer lab, 8:00 PM:** "Ok Jeremy, program complete. I'm running a simulation now" Declared Aelita.

As the simulation ran Jeremy asked "Aelita?"

"Yeah Jeremy"

"Hour and a half until curfew, how is the simulation coming?"

"Simulation looks good. As for curfew... well we're both experts at sneaking in and out of the dorms. It's not like we can't stay out a bit late... if you want to, that is." Aelita said the last few words in a sugary voice that Jeremy was hard pressed to say no to.

"Ok..." Jeremy answered. "Hey I've been thinking, what could your father possibly have to gain by sacrificing his life the way he did in your nightmare?" Jeremy asked.

"I'm not sure. But I was actually wondering the same thing..." Before Jeremy could respond Aelita continued "Maybe he had nothing to gain, maybe... we needed something from him"

"But what? The anti-XANA program is almost done and since we don't want a repeat of the Marabounta I'm quite certain that the program will be bug free when we both sign off on it."

Their conversation was interrupted by a soft, upbeat tone and a window with a green plus sign indicating that the undelete program was a success. Aelita verified that the program correctly protected the newly vacated memory, recovered the data into a new file and then was able to reassemble it into something that could be sent to the materialization program or executed as a new process. Satisfied with the results of their collective effort she saved the program and settled back into Jeremy. Snuggling into him before picking up the conversation where it left off. Jeremy just smiled and allowed her to find a new position that was comfortable for both of them. Once he was sure she was done moving he wrapped his arms around her waist and listened.

"If not code or debugging then what?"

"I don't know, princess... I just don't know what could..." after a moment's pause he continued excitedly "wait a minute, I've got it"

Before Aelita could ask him what he continued on. "When allocating the new process we have to request Memory, CPU time and energy... What if the multi-agent system requires more power then we could afford?"

Aelita understood and replied, her voice laced with sorrow "He gave us his reserve of energy, transferring his very life essence to our program so that it could eliminate XANA."

"Well then we should work on a way to boost the power we can give our multi-agent system. Perhaps we can use the tower activation program we wrote for the Skid?"

"You really think we could do that!?" she asked excitedly.

"Of course, it can't be that much different that reinforcing the Skid's shields. The energy type generated needs to be changed and there are a few other parameters to change..."

Aelita listened to Jeremy as he rattled off the list of changes that he thought would be necessary and seeing as he was now lost in problems, she slid off of his lap and let him have the big chair and keyboard to himself. Watching over his coding she offered her own suggestions for enhancing the program, making it more efficient and more difficult for XANA to counter. It took only about 45 minutes to complete the modifications and begin testing. With most of the work done Aelita hopped back into Jeremy's lap and watched as each simulation came back successful. When the final run came back as a success she saved the newly modified program and snuggled into Jeremy. He again wrapped his arms around her and she fell asleep, happy to be with him and secure knowing that her father wouldn't have to give up his life to save hers. Shortly afterwards he fell asleep too.

* * *

**Cafeteria, Kadic Academy, 6:00 PM:** Jeremy and Aelita had returned from the factory, eaten dinner with their friends and then retreated back to the factory to work. Odd, Ulrich and Yumi went for a walk off campus so that they could discuss Lyoko.

"So do you really think they can do it?" Odd asked.

"I don't know, bringing back the dead is a tall order. Not even a return trip in time can do that" Replied Ulrich.

Yumi chimed in "Actually I suspect that that is not quite true. Otherwise we would have heard about a rash of dead bodies found in odd locations. Consider. If someone dies in a car crash and then we run a return how does a mangled body found lying peacefully in bed get explained?"

Ulrich answered "So maybe only people killed directly or indirectly by XANA can't be brought back."

"That's my theory" Answered Yumi.

"Ok, now that we cleared that up do you think they can do it?" asked Odd impatiently.

"YES!" Yumi and Ulrich answered simultaneously.

Yumi continued by asking "When have you known either Jeremy or Aelita to fail when they really put their minds to a task?"

Odds reply: "Never." Shortly after saying that Odd looked at his watch then his eyes took on a mischievous glint and he took off running towards campus yelling that he had forgotten he had a date tonight.

Yumi and Ulrich looked at each other and grinned. They wondered if Odd had set them up and turned away, continuing their walk in uneasy silence. Both Ulrich and Yumi wondered why this part was so difficult for them. While neither Jeremy nor Aelita were willing to admit their feelings in public it was quite clear that they had both realized and come to terms with how they felt about each other. Ulrich felt a twinge of envy towards his two friends as he realized that they were comfortable with becoming more than friends. He wished that he could obtain that level of comfort with Yumi but she could be erratic, keeping him at a distance sometimes and yet looking to him for strength and support at others. The not so simple truth was that he was scared that she didn't feel the same way and that asking for more would ruin the friendship they had built. For her part Yumi wondered what was keeping Ulrich from asking her out. After all if Odd, Jeremy and Aelita could see that she was in love with him as clearly as they claimed to then why couldn't he. She sighed and walked beside him, silently wondering if he didn't really want the relationship to go any farther. But then she wondered why Odd, Jeremy and Aelita would also claim that Ulrich did indeed love her back if he wanted to stay just friends.

They walked together in silence until they wound up at Yumi's house. Each said an awkward goodnight and parted company. As Yumi entered her house Hiroki asked where Ulrich was. She told him school and her younger brother replied back that he had watched them come up the driveway together. Caught in a lie, regretting another missed opportunity and not wanting Hiroki to say that she should just kiss him already, she told him to shut up and proceeded to bed.

Ulrich returned to Kadic and found Odd waiting for him in their dorm room. Odd of course asked if he enjoyed his walk with Yumi. Ulrich mumbled something unintelligible and hoped Odd would drop the topic. Odd didn't and pressed for an answer, Ulrich excused himself and left wash and change for bed. Odd resumed the conversation right where it left off and he had to listen as Odd went on about he and Yumi were made for each other and that all he had to do was ask and he'd have the same kind of relationship that Jeremy and Aelita were enjoying.

* * *

**Factory, computer lab, Sunday 5:11 AM:** Jeremy woke up to find himself in a somewhat awkward sitting position with a warm, soft weight on his lap and leaning on his chest. His pulse sped up as the sleep left his mind and he realized that he had been sleeping with his angel. He looked at Aelita, still asleep in his arms and marveled at how lucky he was to have her in his life. He savored the moment as he realized that this might just be the calm before the storm. XANA was not likely to go down without a fight and, though Aelita didn't know it yet, the anti-XANA program was in fact ready for her evaluation and whatever debugging or modification she deemed necessary. He had planned to surprise her yesterday but her nightmare had put those plans on hold. With a little luck today would be the day XANA died, leaving them to live the rest of their lives together in peace. But for now there was just the two of them and the peaceful, content feelings that their bond both created and nurtured. A glimpse into a long happy future, Jeremy hoped.

Aelita stirred and woke up, becoming aware that she was in a mostly sitting position and was snuggled against a warm, soft and familiar presence. Realizing that she had actually slept with Jeremy made her heart skip a few beats. She tried to calm herself down, not wanting to squirm and wake him up. She considered just how much teasing they would be in for if Odd found out. Of course his teasing wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen. If any other students or, worse yet, the principle were to find out about this they could get into some serious trouble. Aelita sighed and decided to stop worrying, after all Odd was in bed at Kadic and anyone else who could cause trouble had no idea that either Jeremy or herself were missing. Instead she remained still and allowed herself to enjoy the warm, fuzzy feeling that was building inside her.

"Good morning princess" Jeremy said softly and sweetly as he noticed Aelita waking up. "Did you sleep well?"

"Good morning Jer" Aelita said using her own soft and sweet voice. "It was the best night's sleep I've had in... well... maybe my life" she finished.

"I'm glad." He replied. "And I'd love to stay here like this for a while longer but if we don't hurry back to school we'll be missed and I don't think either of us want to be answering the questions that that would raise."

Aelita didn't hide the disappointment in her voice as she said "I know, and... your right but we get so little time like this"

Jeremy replied "I know and your right but just hang on, XANA will be gone soon enough, then we'll get your father back and we be like any other teenage couple, worrying about your father catching us sneaking back in a little too late and killing me for daring to steal your heart." Both Jeremy and Aelita laughed as he said that last line.

"Oh Jeremy, my father wouldn't kill you, though if you ever hurt me you might very well wish you were dead by the time he was through with you" Aelita said with a smirk

"Somehow I don't doubt that, guess it's a good thing I won't ever hurt you then." Jeremy replied still laughing but with a note of seriousness in his voice.

They stayed in the lab for a few more minutes then got up and began the walk back to Kadic. Both were able to sneak back to their respective dorm rooms undetected, getting a couple more hours of sleep before waking up, showering and meeting up with the rest of the group for breakfast.

* * *

**Somewhere on the internet, 2:00 PM:** Franz Hopper had managed to avoid XANA and now had another relatively safe spot from which to work. This particular computer network was a research project in distributed computing and was experiencing near zero utilization at the moment. Franz had taken advantage of the lull in activity to turn the computer power he currently had against XANA, using it to project ghosts and false trails that would hopefully keep XANA chasing his tail for a very long time. Well actually an eternity for a computer program, but only 10 to 20 hours of clock time. He checked on the factory but didn't find either his daughter or her boyfriend there. A check of the lab security records suggested that they left at 5:28 AM. He scowled as he realized what that likely meant and was somewhat relieved to find that lab security tapes showed that while they had indeed slept together, nothing remarkable had happened.

Turning his attention elsewhere he checked for Aelita's computer, then her laptop and finding neither he looked for Jeremy's desktop. That he found both powered on and connected to Lyoko. Opening a new connection he was greeted with the sight of Aelita at his computer and Jeremy sitting close to her. He accessed the current program and skimmed the code. Again this program was written entirely in Jeremy's style and as he read he became more and more impressed. The program before him was a multi-agent system similar to both Cartage and XANA. Unlike them however this program would accomplish its task and self-destruct. It's agents also appeared able to cross-check one another, activating a cleverly coded kill switch should they begin to display any emergent properties. The protection wasn't exactly perfect, but then nothing really was. Well, maybe his daughter, he thought.

He reached out and made contact, while the thousands of randomly generated phantoms and connections shielded his presence. On Jeremy's screen a new messenger window popped up with the following message: "FH: Hello Aelita, Jeremy. Check the following file". Aelita checked the file and was ecstatic when it validated the intruder's identity.

A: HI DADDY!!!!!

FH: It's good to get a chance to talk with you. How is the fight with XANA coming?

A: Great, we've just finished a program to kill XANA once and for all. I just need to finish testing it and then we'll call the gang and finish off XANA.

FH: I know, I can see the program Jeremy created. But before you do that I need to add a few things to your program. I'm transferring another file now.

A: Got it daddy. Jeremy is going to get his laptop so that we can continue talking while he looks it over and adds your modifications.

FH: That's very thoughtful of him. He seems to be taking great care of you.

A: Yes it is. But he worries me sometimes. He works so hard on the programs that I need, that we need to fight XANA and find you. Sometimes I'm afraid he'll work himself to death. In fact, on a few occasions he nearly has. I've had to force him to take breaks though he does seem to be getting better at balancing XANA, me, our friends and school.

FH: Aelita, he loves you and for a while that was the best way he had to show it. Also he is afraid of losing you to XANA. And I think you can guess how he would feel if you were to fall to XANA and he had an unfinished program that could have saved you, but he went to sleep instead of staying up a few more hours to complete it.

A: I understand that but it still doesn't help when I see him in pain - struggling to make it through class because he skipped a few meals to work or walking around like a zombie because he didn't sleep.

FH: I know what you mean. The truth is it is very hard to watch someone you love put themselves through any pain to help you. And you do love him, don't you. Not just because of everything he's done for you?

A: Yes and while I do appreciate all that he has done and continues to do it's not that. Jeremy makes me feel safe, he frees me, like I can fly in his presence. I've never felt anything like it before. It's different and stronger than any feeling I get from my other friends.

FH: Well then you're definitely in love. And that scares me a little, well more than a little. And I'll also admit to being a little jealous.

A: Why?

FH: Scared - Because your vulnerable, there are so many things that he could do to hurt you and it's something I can't protect you from.

FH: Jealous because no father wants to see his little girl grow up and leave.

A: Jeremy wouldn't do anything like that to me. And I can't stay a little girl forever. If I don't live my own life then everything my friends and I have worked so hard for is worthless. But I'll always love you daddy. You'll always have a place in my heart - right next to Jeremy.

FH: I hope your right about Jeremy, but I'm uncomfortable with the way you two spent last night. It seems that you're moving a little fast. You'll have a long life ahead of you, there's no need to jump into bed with the first guy that shows up and rescues you :-)

A: Daddy!? It wasn't like that - nothing happened, we just fell asleep together after working on a program. It wasn't planned.

FH: I see you blushing. And I know nothing happened last night. But it's still a big step and if you're not careful you could go someplace that neither of you are ready for. Do you understand?

A: Yes, I think so. But we both know that were not ready for that and we can control ourselves. For that matter we can barely even kiss without blushing.

FH: You'll get over that soon enough, like I said just take your time and let everything fall into place. Now I need to talk to you about something else.

A: OK, but first tell me - are you doing ok out on the net?

FH: I'm doing just fine, XANA seems to be focusing entirely on me for now. But as long as I stay one step ahead I'll be fine out here.

A: Good but be careful. I've already lost you once. I've had nightmares about losing you again and I don't want them to come true. I need you here with me.

FH: I understand but Aelita you have to worry about yourself and your friends. I'm at fault for all of this, I deserve whatever happens to me. You on the other hand, you're innocent, you and your friends have fought hard for the life and freedom you have and you deserve that life, whatever the cost to me.

A: Daddy no. I want you here with me and I know you didn't mean for any of this to happen. You've been held prisoner just as I have. You watched your creation used to hurt and even kill me. You've had to run and hide in the network all alone. You've been punished enough. You deserve to come home.

FH: I'm glad you feel that way Aelita but it doesn't change one simple fact - if my life is the price of your freedom then it's a price I'd gladly pay. Knowing that you will be safe, free and loved means I can die a happy man.

A: NO NO NO NO NO I don't ever want to hear you talk like that. We are going to destroy XANA. We are going to rescue you. We are going to re-materialize you and then we can be a family again.

FH: Ok Aelita. I like your determination but try to understand my point. If you need to look at it from Jeremy's perspective. Is there anything he wouldn't sacrifice to see you safe?

A: I have the feeling that he'd trade his life for mine without hesitation. I can even understand that you feel the same way but I don't want you taking any unnecessary risks with yourself. I can't lose you again.

FH: I know honey, but promise me one thing?

A: Anything

FH: Promise me that if anything does happen to me on Lyoko you'll stay strong and do whatever is necessary to destroy XANA. I plan on being there with you and if I am deleted on Lyoko you can use the undelete program to recover me. Don't waste the opportunity to free yourself of XANA because you can't handle my reversible death.

A: I PROMISE.

FH: Good girl. Now I need to meet with you on Lyoko. Ask Jeremy how much longer he needs on the program.

A: He says another hour then it'll be ready.

FH: OK then, meet in the Ice sector in an hour and a half, coordinates to follow.

FH: XANA's getting close, I've got to go now. Love you.

A: We'll be there, Love you dad

While Aelita was talking with her father Jeremy looked over the transmitted code and marveled. He had not known about any of the programming interfaces that Franz was referencing in his code. More importantly each function call seemed to need a very long encryption code to complete. Judging by the comments in the code the modifications would make secure erasure of all of the Lyoko environment possible, even areas that were impossible to attack directly such as the restricted access partition that stored character profiles, the vehicles, the return to the past program, and various other programs and files that it was best XANA not have access to. Lyoko had been coded with provisions to prevent it from being turned against itself. Jeremy realized that that was why XANA needed Aelita's memory. It needed her half of the key code to be able to copy Lyoko to other computers. XANA needed Lyoko's environment to survive, and copying a program as complex as Lyoko had taken time which is why Franz had the opportunity to rescue Aelita and take back control of the original Lyoko. And now his multi-agent program had that power. It could not only destroy XANA but securely erase all of the replica environments as well. Then all Jeremy would have to do is change the Lyoko core access code. Even if fragments of XANA's code survived somewhere they would have no place to go and would eventually be deleted as inert and useless data. It was the perfect solution.

Once Aelita finished with her father Jeremy explained the situation and together they set about modifying the anti-XANA program. When they were done they packed up and made doubly sure that all needed files were transferred and available on both disk and Jeremy's laptop. Certain they had everything they needed. Aelita called Yumi and Jeremy called Odd. Then Aelita called William and filled him in.

* * *

**Factory, 26 minutes before the arranged meeting:** Neither Ulrich nor Yumi were happy to see William around. Jeremy raised his voice to silence the protest. He quickly laid out the battle plan. Stage one was the meet with Franz Hopper and once the multi-agent program was finally complete and had the combined access codes everyone would escort Aelita to the edge of the sector. Once there Jeremy would call the transport orb to take everyone to sector five. Then it was simple, protect Aelita until she could launch the multi-agent program from the Celestial dome terminal. Finally watch as XANA died.

Of course it wouldn't be that simple. XANA wasn't going to die that easily. So Aelita insisted that part of the plan involve someone staying outside the computer in case XANA decided to use a specter to attack Jeremy. William wasn't an option because Jeremy assumed that all of William's time in the network did not grant him the immunity to XANA's possession that the rest of his group had. So William had to go into Lyoko and one of the others would have to stay behind. After an argument Odd was selected by a draw of straws. For his part William agreed to follow orders and to not run off killing monsters while the rest of his friends needed protecting. That settled, he began the transfer procedures.

* * *

**Lyoko, Ice sector, Hopper's designated coordinates:** When Aelita arrived she saw a glowing ball of energy that was gently hovering above a pool of simulated water. The ice cave he had chosen was hidden behind a waterfall and that path was the only way in or out of the cave. Aelita was overjoyed to feel her father's presence as he floated over and enveloped her. Franz "held" Aelita within his avatar and made his way over to a neutral tower. Once inside he helped Jeremy and Aelita finish the modifications he specified and added his own codes to the program making it fully operational. Unfortunately there wasn't much time to celebrate as XANA launched a full on assault.

The first warning of the coming onslaught was Jeremy's excited voice declaring that the kolossus was being formed. Jeremy also pointed out that the superscan was detecting an active tower in the desert sector. As the warriors left the tower Jeremy called out several mantas in the air as well as a number of tarantulas on the ground. Vehicles materialized before them and everyone realized that not only was the fight on, but it would be a duel to the death.

Aelita got unto the overboard and motioned for William to follow. She went for the passage tower intending to transfer to the desert sector and then deactivate the tower there. Ulrich mounted the overbike with a small leap and gunned the throttle, accelerating towards the tarantulas and dodging most of their laser fire. Yumi hopped unto the overboard and began flying towards the mantas. Meanwhile Aelita realized that she had a problem because the passage tower was being guarded by a small army of blocks and krabes and hornets (she counted 10 of each). "Jeremy I've got a problem here" she said. Worry over the lack of response threatened to interfere with her concentration on flying as time ticked by with no response.

In the computer lab Jeremy and Odd had their own XANA problem as a cloud of black smoke emerged from the holo map and formed into a copy of Jim. Odd moved between the specter and Jeremy and lunged at it. The specter phased out and allowed Odd to pass right through. Then it advanced on Jeremy. Odd rolled neatly back into a standing position, grabbed a metal pipe and lunged again to the clone. He hit the clone square in the head and it collapsed into a flickering heap. Jeremy breathed a sigh of relief and looked over the tactical situation on Lyoko. His friends needed help, but so did he.

Franz had an idea. Accessing the communication system Franz explained that he could deactivate the tower and could reach it by means of the digital sea. Aelita offered to escort him but he choose to take William instead explaining that he had an idea on how to use the tower to protect Jeremy and that he would need someone to protect his tower. Aelita realized that he was right, Odd wouldn't be able to protect Jeremy by himself and if he did XANA could simply activate another tower to attack him again repeating the process until both Odd and Jeremy were dead. She returned to her father and let William hop off the overboard then wished both of them good luck. She couldn't help but feel a spike of envy as William was engulfed by her father. Forcing the feeling out of her head she turned her attention to getting to the sector's edge, once there the transport orb could take her to sector five.

Ulrich had managed to kill most of the tarantulas and Yumi had the upper hand with the mantas. At least until the kolossus took a swipe at her with its sword-like arm. The attack was slow and clumsy but given the size of the thing's arm it was a problem nonetheless. She jerked the overwing up and to the right but found herself square in the crossfire of the remaining mantas. She swerved to avoid most of the fire but a couple of shots hit the overboard causing it to disintegrate. As she fell one of the mantas rammed her. She looked down and realized that there was nothing for her to land on, only the digital sea loomed beneath her. She screamed for help hoping that Ulrich would save her, or come to that, Jeremy would de-virtualize her before she was lost forever.

Franz emerged from the digital sea in the desert sector and quickly ascended to the plateau where the activated tower was. Seeing a welcoming committee of krabes and megatanks he released William and went to find cover. William moved up using his massive sword to block the krabes laser fire. Focusing on the sword he charged it and swung it around, unleashing a wave of energy that knocked back the megatank he was aiming for. It responded by opening its spherical shell and unleashing an expanding disk. William dodged out of the way as Franz suggested and charged towards the monster. He was stopped short by another disc shaped blast that expanded just in front of him. Caught as he was the krabes took the opportunity to open fire again. William leapt up and swung his sword, this time destroying one of krabes. He landed and narrowly avoided being sliced in two by the megatank's laser disc. "This is not going to be easy" William thought as he circled around his opponents.

Jeremy heard Yumi's cry for help and began the process of de-virtualizing her. He hadn't finished as Jim blasted him with a jolt of electricity. Then Jim got up and placed a sustained charge across his chest. The specter's energy was of too high a frequency to quickly electrocute Jeremy but his vision clouded as the current induced white hot pain across his entire chest. Worse than that though was a simple fact, the pain and current were keeping him from breathing. "Short circuit current" Jeremy managed to croak out, not sure that Odd heard him. Odd must have because after only a few seconds (that felt like hours to Jeremy) the Jim specter again collapsed to the floor, a glowing hot metal bar resting on its hands. Odd grinned in satisfaction and then went to help Jeremy collect himself. Jeremy looked at the tactical display and abandoned the idea of materializing Yumi. Instead he set up the un-delete program that he had hoped he would not have to use and scripted it to execute on any character deletion and route the recovered data to the virtualization program in the hopes that Yumi could get a second chance on Lyoko instead of being sent back to earth.

William positioned himself so that the second megatank was in between him and the first one. William charged towards the closest megatank and watched it open its shell and charge its laser emitter. He pushed off and hit the creature off center rotating it and causing its laser ring to strike its partner. The hit megatank rolled away towards where Franz was hiding. Then it suddenly went flying away as Franz hit it with a telekinetic blast. The remaining megatank rolled after William intent on running him over. The Krabe was shooting, trying to lead William into a trap. Sacrificing a few life points didn't seem like a bad idea so William changed course and charged after the Krabe. He took a couple of hits but was rewarded when Franz pushed him out of the way and the megatank's laser ring sliced through the Krabe. William charged at the megatank and twisted out of the way of its laser disc then threw his sword into the open shell. Franz flew into the tower and headed to the top. He reached out and a terminal popped up. Entering his code he saw the infected data and code drop into the tower. Then he started entering his own program. Outside William stood guard, waiting for XANA's next attack.

Ulrich saw Yumi fall past the edge of the ice shelf and panicked. He raced towards the edge and saw that he would never make it to her in time. He called for Jeremy but got no response. He dove in after Yumi determined to save her, whatever the cost. Revving the overbike he shot down towards her closing the gap too slowly for his liking.

"Ulrich, go back. You can't let the kolossus get to Aelita" Yumi yelled out.

"I'm not letting you die" Ulrich yelled back.

"I won't die you idiot, Jeremy can recover me with his undelete program."

"How do you know that Jeremy had time to set up the program?" Ulrich called out.

"I have faith" Yumi replied.

"Then he can recover me, I love you and I'm not taking that chance with your life" Ulrich answered angrily

Yumi went numb, her mind racing with possibilities, while being flooded with guilt, relief, love, and anger. All she had wanted, Ulrich had just given her and now one or both of them was going to die. She realized that she now only had a few seconds and tried to shout an I love you back. Her voice caught in her throat and she berated herself for being such a coward. A familiar pain went through her and she woke up in a scanner tube. She cursed herself for not telling him, got out of scanner and collapsed onto the floor crying. To the empty room she called out "I love you Ulrich" hopping that wherever he was he would hear her.

Aelita saw the twin pillars of light as two objects were permanently deleted. She called out to Jeremy, hoping that he would tell her it wasn't Yumi and Ulrich she just saw die. Instead she was answered by flashes of laser light from a trio of flying mantas. They were blocking her forward progress and then she saw why. The kolossus was lumbering towards her position, free of both Yumi and Ulrich. She was in trouble. "Jeremy" she called out desperately. "Daddy" she called out when there was no response. In her mind she could hear XANA laughing at her, taunting her with the death of everyone she loved. She was about to give up hope when Jeremy's voice came down from the sky.

Jim got up again and grabbed Jeremy, throwing him towards the closest wall. Jeremy heard Odd cry out as Jim's lightning bolt sent Odd crashing into the wall beside him. Odd slumped against Jeremy and tried, unsuccessfully, to get up. The specter took a step towards the pair but never got any closer. Instead it dissolved into black smoke which dissipated into thin air. Jeremy signed in relief and checked on Odd. The two helped each other up and Jeremy looked over his computer display. His heart sank as he saw the flashing red explanation mark in the window that scripted Yumi's rescue. Then he shouted with Joy as he realized that the problem was simply that the virtualization refused to put Ulrich into Yumi's character profile. Jeremy quickly put Ulrich's data into the proper profile and he appeared, confused and bewildered, on Lyoko. Jeremy put his earpiece and microphone back on then told Aelita to hang on, Ulrich was coming to the rescue. Then he told Ulrich that he had been successfully undeleted and to go help Aelita.

"Jeremy what about Yumi, did I de-virtualize her in time?" Ulrich asked as he waited for the overbike to materialize. Jeremy checked his log and found that Yumi had been transferred back to earth a few minutes ago. "Yes, she's in the scanner room" came Jeremy's reply. Yumi's heart leapt with joy as she heard Jeremy call down that Ulrich was safe on Lyoko after being un-deleted. She picked herself up, wiped the tears out of her eyes and climbed up the ladder to the computer lab. Upon arrival Jeremy told her to help Odd down to the scanner so that he could help Ulrich on Lyoko. Yumi started to protest but was cut off when she heard Ulrich's voice come over the speaker "I really need some help over here Jeremy".

Franz hopper activated his program and felt a measure of satisfaction as he confirmed the readings. "Jeremy, I've set up a dampening field around the lab, scanner room, and computer room. It'll prevent XANA from attacking you with specters or possessed individuals." Franz's happiness at his accomplishment didn't last long as XANA figured out the trick and begin attacking the tower. Franz set to work protecting his tower from the inside. Outside the tower William saw approaching monsters and ran out to engage them. He hoped Aelita and Jeremy were almost ready to kill XANA because his odds did not look good.

XANA activated another tower, this time in the mountain sector. It reached out and went for the orbital laser cannon. If I couldn't take them out on Lyoko and I can't send specters then I'll simply blast them into dust from space. And should that somehow fail XANA knew something else. Managing the links necessary to sustain the kolossus, all the other monsters, the dampening field, the hack attack on the military satellite, whatever Jeremy came up with to fight that and whatever they had in mind to kill him would push the supercomputer beyond its limits. Even if all else fails, the supercomputer would overheat and explode from the excessive amount of energy it was trying to manage and calculations it needed to make.

"Odd, think you can manage to put a whole bunch of laser arrows into this things head?" Asked Ulrich

"Yeah but what good would that do, you practically ripped its face in half once and it didn't faze it" Odd shouted back as he dodged another barrage of laser bolts and fired back at the trio of mantas that were hounding him

"There's another target on its arm, If I can hit it while it's still stunned from your arrows it might go down" Ulrich yelled back, deflecting shots from the remaining tarantula as he advanced on it.

"Ok, finish off your playmate and we'll make a run at it. If we're really lucky we'll still be in time to escort the princess to the sector's edge" Odd yelled.

"Impact!" Ulrich called out as he jammed his sword into the tarantula's beak.

"ULRICH JUMP" Odd yelled out as loudly as he could. Ulrich looked back and used his supersprint ability to jump up and out of the way of the Kolossus' sword arm as it swept towards him. Landing on the sword he fought for balance as the creature brought its arm up and began to turn it vertical. "Odd it's now or never" Ulrich yelled out. Odd considered his position and jumped off his overboard, twisting around as he fell and firing arrows as quickly as he could. Odds cry of "Laser Arrow" alerted Ulrich that it was time to act. Ulrich leapt sideways and plunged both swords into the targets, using their resistance to slow his fall off the monster's arm. It seemed to cry out in pain as the lava like rivers that formed its joints began to lose their angry red glow. Neither Ulrich nor Odd had time to celebrate their victory as Aelita called for some help.

Jeremy looked over the network utilization and frowned, realizing that XANA was using the active tower to attack a heavily fortified computer somewhere else on the network. He traced after XANA's connection and sighed heavily as he finally saw the target. "Not again!" he called out in despair. "What?" Yumi asked. "That damn orbital laser cannon, its XANA's target" Jeremy replied. With that he set to work, hoping that he could out-hack XANA but knowing that it was an impossible task. Jeremy didn't hear the sounds of Ulrich and Odd's victory over the kolossus and didn't notice the urgent red notice that came up on the resource monitoring panel to the left of the main screen. The message read: "WARNING: THERMAL POWER OUTPUT AT 137% NOMINAL. THE PRIMARY, SECONDARY, AND TERTIARY COOLING CIRCUITS ARE NOW OPERATING AT MAXIMIUM CAPACITY. SAFE CORE TEMPERATURE CANNOT BE MAINTAINED."

Franz sighed as he took a moment to assess his situation. The tower he was in was under attack. William was fighting desperately but it was a losing battle. Once that happened he would have to run, with no protection from XANA. If he remained and XANA forcibly destroyed the tower he would die. But if he left, XANA could kill him. He "looked" down and considered, he could navigate the data streams inside the Lyoko tower network. If he put up a few firewall programs and created a distraction he might be able to slip away and activate another tower before XANA compromised this one. He went for it, programming in a few traps for XANA and then dove into the inter-tower network and headed for the mountain sector. William got de-virtualized and a quartet of megatanks began pounding the tower. Eventually it collapsed but Franz was nowhere to be found. The field protecting Jeremy waivered but did not go down.

XANA lost the kolossus and with it a large part of the cooling budget it was wasting. XANA was frustrated and went to reform its monster but couldn't. Lyoko refused to grant the system resources required to reform it. XANA concentrated on pelting the computer with corrupt data instead. Using the existing receptor processes to recover and repair the data would consume significant amounts of CPU time. It wouldn't be as effective as having another Kolossus but it would eventually cook the supercomputer and may also prevent the 'warriors' from launching their so called anti-XANA program. Unfortunately the system was also preventing more monsters from spawning.

Jeremy's nimble fingers swept over the keyboard with impressive speed and accuracy as he worked on small programs to disrupt XANA's network access. The concentration was eating into Jeremy though and Yumi put a reassuring hand onto his shoulder, "You can do this Jeremy, we all have faith in you" she said. Jeremy gave a barely perceptible nod of his head as acknowledgement. Yumi jumped as she felt a hand on her shoulder and turned around ready to fight. She saw William and was just barely able to stop herself from punching him out. "Yeah, happy to see you too" said William. He started to say something to Jeremy but Yumi cut him off "He's in a hacking duel with XANA, let him concentrate" She growled. William backed off, taking a seat against the holo-projector in the center of the room.

"Jeremy call the transport, quickly" Aelita pleaded. They got no response but after about a minute the orb pulled up and engulfed them. When they arrived in the arena that served as the entry point to sector five they heard Jeremy call out "We have a problem, XANA's almost got control of the laser satellite so you need to get to the terminal and launch the program, I've got an idea but I'm not sure how much time it will buy us." The trio took off running as the wall opened up to let them through. There was no resistance until they hit the celestial dome. Then there was a minefield and several mantas flying outside. "Guess XANA doesn't want to die" remarked Odd. "Well that's too bad, because he's long overstayed his welcome" Aelita said with more anger than any of them had ever heard in her voice.

Jeremy tried his last trick, using code injected into XANA's own outgoing data stream to fire a thruster on the Satellite. In orbit the satellite spun around and with its antenna out of alignment with any ground station it began an automated orbital correction sequence. The Satellite was out of range before it realigned itself and became available for new commands. Unfortunately XANA could steal any number of weapons which could be trained on the factory and it went straight back to hacking. Jeremy took a moment to program vehicles for Ulrich and Odd who had reached the celestial dome and needed to clear the way for Aelita. Then he let out a long frustrated breath and went back to his duel. He quickly found that XANA picked a navy warship that had cruise missiles within range of the factory to be his next target. Sweat dripped from his forehead as his fingers flew over the keyboard. He was trying a new tactic, accessing network routers and servers to redirect and drop the connections XANA needed to hack the ship's targeting computers. He never noticed the slowly rising temperature of the computer.

Franz was struggling with his own programming duel as XANA poured energy into his tower hoping to overwhelm it while simultaneously trying to break the access codes that allowed Franz to manipulate what the tower was doing. Franz knew that XANA would eventually win this battle and retreated again, this time to the forest region. XANA broke into the abandoned tower shortly after Franz left but didn't find the dampening field program. Franz took a moment to check up on Jeremy and his daughter. He was again impressed to see that Jeremy was holding his own in a programming duel with XANA. His daughter was also fighting impressively well with her two friends. As he focused his mind on accessing Lyoko he noticed that the core temperature was hot and rising. His heart fell, or would have had he had a proper body, as he realized that the multi-agent program couldn't be run under these conditions. At least not without his direct intervention. He resigned himself to his likely fate and put up another temporary firewall to keep out XANA. Then he composed farewell notes to his daughter, Jeremy and finally the whole gang. He bailed from the tower just in the nick of time as XANA came crashing through his firewall.

Aelita fired another two energy fields and managed to hit one manta, the other one hit a mine and detonated the entire minefield. She smiled in satisfaction as Odd and Ulrich ran towards their waiting vehicles. Odd quickly ascended while Ulrich dove chasing after a retreating pair of mantas. Odd swooped down on his prey from above and managed to down two of his three targets. With the coast clear Aelita went out into the open space and called up the terminal. She prepared the multi-agent system and cried out in anger and frustration as the system produced an error: "UNABLE TO ALLCOATE CPU TIME, CPU WARNING TEMPERATURE EXCEEDED" "UNABLE TO ALLOCATE REQUESTED ENERGY, POWER CONVERSION SYSTEMS ARE OPERATING BEYOND DESIGN CAPACITY".

Before she could call Jeremy for help her father appeared as a floating sphere in front of her. "I need you to remember your promise Aelita. I'm transferring my energy to the program, once that's done I'll override the lockout and you can launch the program." Aelita was about to reply when a laser bolt hit her in the foot. Odd finished off his last manta and then was hit by Ulrich's target and flew off his board, dissolving into nothing. The two mantas that had attacked Aelita flew off and took out Ulrich as his sword sliced into the manta that had de-virtualized Odd.

Franz pleaded with his daughter "Aelita, you have to run the program once it has the energy. Whatever the cost XANA must be destroyed" as the two remaining mantas began shooting him.

"Aelita your father is right, XANA is going to blow the factory up with cruise missiles." Jeremy said, the alarm plain in his voice. Then he forced himself to calm down and started typing on his console (available since Aelita had left the vicinity of the one in the celestial dome).

"Aelita, I've loaded the recovery program and attached it to your father's process. Even if XANA kills him we can bring him back once the super computer recovers."

Jeremy's voice was soothing and confidant to Aelita's ears. She stepped back to the terminal as Jeremy said "You need to give me control as soon as the program is running so that I can activate the recovery program"

"I know" Aelita said calmly. She stepped back to the console and watched the energy transfer. Franz gave his last reserve of strength to the computer and watched as Aelita pressed the launch button. Out of Lyoko's core came an army of sprites, targeting the infected tower they pushed through it and it collapsed. XANA's hack attack on the navy ship stopped. Franz could sense the program working as it moved through Lyoko, cleansing the computer of XANA's infection. Then he felt the last laser strike. He concentrated on Aelita, focusing on her, comparing her to the girl he remembered standing in the scanner on the day this nightmare began. She had been a child then, filled with wonder about everything. She was smart and curious then and he could see she had not lost those traits. He marveled at how, through all the terrible things she had been put through by him, she still retained that innocence. He considered how much she had grown as well. She was standing strong and proud and confident before him now. Not the scared little girl that he had had to leave all alone in that tower so many years ago. She could survive and even thrive without him, she'd have to now he knew. Her friends would help her, he hoped she knew how lucky she was to have them. People who would stand with her and behind her no matter what. He thought of Jeremy, father to her at one time and lover now. He could see her memories of Jeremy and thought that he would make a good husband for her. He offered a final goodbye as the darkness closed in. His final thought was of the life she was free to live. His final emotion was utter and complete joy, the same that he felt at her birth.

Jeremy looked over the results of the undelete program and started to panic as the gigabytes of data came nowhere even close to the data needed to contain a person. He began looking through the data for something recognizable, DNA fragments, Lyoko interfaces, anything. Instead he found gibberish, data that looked... looked encrypted. "Aelita, I need the command buffers and CPU registers that your father was occupying before his death. His data stream looks both incomplete and encrypted." Jeremy managed to keep the panic out of his voice and hoped Aelita would keep her focus. He was rewarded with a deluge of data as Aelita managed to keep her composure and comply.

Ulrich came over to the lab computer and put his arm around Yumi and she responded by giving him a kiss on the cheek.

"Uh Yumi? I'm sorry I tried to save you. I should have" Ulrich said but was cut off by Yumi.

"It's ok, I understand how you feel. But the next time how about just telling me instead of trying to kill yourself" Yumi said softly

"Hey, what did I miss" Odd yelled, seeing Ulrich's arm wrapped around Yumi and picking up bits of their conversation from the other side of Jeremy.

Before either Ulrich or Yumi could answer Jeremy yelled for quite, his panic, frustration, and anger evident in his voice. Getting silence he returned to watch the flood of data, looking for something useful. Then he saw it, one thread that seemed to do little other than keep track of memory. "Aelita I've got it, freeze the buffers and let me take over." Jeremy's fingers again flew over the keyboard and soon he had a program for Aelita to run from her terminal. As it ran Jeremy saw the recovered data count skyrocket until he had what he expected to get based on his experience with the virtualization programs for his friends. Now it was time to look over her father's process for a decryption algorithm. Aelita spotted the two very obvious problems with this approach and began to cry. Her sobs reaching Jeremy over the communications link.

"Aelita what's wrong?" he asked.

"The data we recovered, it's useless... Scrambled beyond recovery" She cried

"What!? we have everything we need here. The algorithm is one of the running threads you froze and I'd bet you hold the key to decrypt all of this once we find the algorithm" Jeremy told her in his most soothing voice.

"No Jeremy, you don't understand. There's no way of knowing the order into which we need to put the data. That index is encrypted..." Her voice broke as she said that and she dropped down to the floor crying.

"Aelita... " Jeremy stopped. She was right he realized, without knowing how to align the data it couldn't be decrypted and without decrypting the memory index the data could not be put in order. It was a catch 22.

"Aelita, I'm so sorry... I'll bring you back... but... wait, how much time do you think it would take to try all possible combinations of the data files we've recovered?" Jeremy asked

Aelita stopped crying long enough to consider then replied "Our great grandchildren's grandchildren would still be here waiting for the process to finish" she replied as she resumed sobbing.

She was right again he realized as he looked over the memory fragments they had recovered. Franz hopper was dead and there was nothing either he or Aelita could do to change that. "What about a return to the past?" Odd asked. "Well, if it brings Franz Hopper back then it will bring XANA back too. But most likely both will stay dead. And worst case scenario we get XANA back and not Franz Hopper". Odd had nothing more to say and just hung his head in defeat "it's not fair" he mumbled. Jeremy couldn't have agreed more. "I'll bring you back Aelita, I'm sorry." Jeremy began the materialization process and headed down to the scanner room.

Aelita stepped out of the scanner tube and looked around the room, her gaze settling on Jeremy. She gave herself a push in his direction and fell into his arms. Supported by Jeremy she turned and buried her head in his shoulder, letting herself cry. Her sobs filled the otherwise silent room. Yumi watched her two friends and wondered if her parents might take them in for a night if she could come up with a suitable story. When the idea came to her she quietly slipped out and made the call. Hopefully her parents were in a good mood.

Aelita stopped crying after about 45 minutes and Jeremy led her up to the terminal. "Your father left you a final note. I think he knew this might happen." Jeremy said that knowing both that she needed to see his note and that it would make her cry. He hated himself for making her cry but she really did need to see that note. It would help her heal. Jeremy brought up the file and after watching Odd give her a bottle of water he asked everyone else to leave with him while Aelita read. She stopped him with a barely audible "stay, please Jeremy. I'm not sure I can handle this by myself". He replied by walking back over to her, wrapping his arms around her waist and putting his head against hers. "Ready?" he asked. She opened the file:

_My Dear Aelita,_

_If your reading this then I've been lost beyond recovery. I knew this would happen if I died on Lyoko. I knew this would happen when I found out about your recovery program. Staying silent was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. But you needed me to do it. You needed to believe that I could be restored to life as your friends could in order to win. And you had to win, your freedom and your life are more important than mine. I'm so sorry Aelita and I hope that someday you can find it in your heart to forgive me. If you don't I'll understand but please forget about me if you can't forgive me. You can't ruin the life you and your friends won by hating me. It's how I destroyed your life. I built the supercomputer and created XANA to take revenge on the project that stole your mother away. I should have run, taken you away and stayed hidden. We could have survived, could have lived normal and happy lives. Instead I took my revenge and you suffered the consequences. Now you are free, you have friends that care __about you and a boy that loves you. You can lead a normal life. Don't ruin your second chance as I did. _

All my love,

_Franz Hopper_

Aelita turned around in Jeremy's arms and again buried her head into his shoulder crying. Jeremy held her tightly, trying to sooth and calm her. Slowly her sobs began to lessen and finally stop. He pulled away and she let him go. Looking into her eyes Jeremy saw not the bright green emeralds he had fallen in love with but a well of sorrow and loss. He wondered how anything could fill in the void he saw in her heart but he knew he would stand by her. He went back to the computer, her hand in his and, using his one free hand, executed a special superscan, one that would scour the internet and confirm that XANA really was gone. "Making sure XANA is really gone" He explained gently. Once the program was running he lead Aelita to the elevator and headed up to the factory floor.

Yumi looked over and saw the elevator doors open. "Jeremy, Aelita I've got good news. My parents have agreed to let you and Aelita spend the night with me. You don't have to be alone tonight Aelita." Aelita looked over to Yumi and offered the closest thing to a smile she could manage, erasing the frown from her face for a few seconds.

"That's great Yumi, how did you do it?" Jeremy asked, his voice subdued.

"I told my parents that when Aelita was young she lost her mother. Shortly after she watched her father die fighting for her life during a robbery. The shock was too much and she simply buried the memories. Now that she has friends she is comfortable with her brain decided that she could cope and those memories came flooding back."

"Great thinking Yumi, and close enough to the truth as well." Jeremy said much too sadly. He wished he could have managed a more upbeat tone since it really was a great idea and he wanted his commendation to actually sound like praise. With that the group walked to Yumi's house in silence. Jeremy held Aelita and the rest formed a protective formation around them.

* * *

**Yumi's house, 6:42 PM**: Yumi opened the door to find both her parents waiting with a hot meal for the entire group. Everybody ate a little bit but not even Odd really felt hungry. Then Odd and Ulrich headed back to school while Yumi's parents offered a surprise of their own: Principle Delmas granted all three of you the day off to help Aelita deal with her trauma. "Thanks Mr. and Ms. Ishiyama, that was really nice of you" Jeremy replied.

After dinner they went up to Yumi's room. Aelita sat down on the bed and just stared out into the night. Jeremy looked over Aelita and had an idea. He began to tell one of the many stories Aelita had told him of her childhood. He peppered the story with mistakes and began to smile as she finally took the bait and started correcting him. Aelita took over Jeremy's second story about a third of the way through and when that was finished he prompted Aelita for one last story. This one she recited on her own and was actually smiling as she finished. Noticing this Jeremy spoke up "I bet you feel just a little bit better, don't you."

"Yes" Aelita said, her voice weak and a little hoarse from all the crying and now talking she had been doing.

"You know Aelita, as long as you remember him... As long as you can tell stories and remember the happy times Franz will live forever right here." Jeremy said as he gently placed his hand over her heart.

"It doesn't mean you can't feel sad or cry, or mourn him. In fact you need to do all those things and it's perfectly normal. But he hasn't completely left you, not while you can remember him." Jeremy said as tears formed in his own eyes.

Aelita turned towards and then embraced Jeremy, He hugged her tightly against him. Yumi let them have their moment and went to find some spare blankets and pillows. When she returned she made a bed for her two friends on the floor. She left again to wash up and change, when she came back she found Aelita cradled in Jeremy's arms, asleep. Yumi put a blanket over both of them and heard Jeremy whisper "Thanks Yumi". She replied with "Your welcome" and got into her own bed.

* * *

**Kadic Acadmy, Ulrich and Odds room:** "Do you think she'll be ok?" Asked Odd.

"She was pretty broken up, especially after reading the letter from her dad." Ulrich replied

"Do you think he knew he wasn't coming back?" Odd asked

"If he didn't then he wouldn't have left a letter." Ulrich replied bitterly "I can't believe he did that to her, letting her believe she could bring him back"

"Ulrich, did you ever think that he did tell her? Maybe"

"No, she was too upset to have known in advance" Ulrich yelled, cutting Odd off. "He let her believe that he could be brought back so that she could accept the energy transfer, so that she could kill him without feeling guilty."

"And the only reason to do that would have been to make sure that she could survive. To eliminate XANA and give her the life he had taken away from her. "Odd yelled back.

"It was.. " Ulrich couldn't finish the sentence. It was exactly what he had been willing to do for Yumi, trading his life for hers.

"Ulrich, you ok?" Odd asked his voice soft and filled with concern.

"Yeah, just thinking about something that happened on Lyoko" Ulrich replied.

"Something that happened between you and Yumi?" Odd inquired, his voice now lightly teasing.

"I'm not going to talk about it Odd, now let me get some sleep I'm tired."

Odd shrugged and decided that Ulrich was in no mood to be pressed further. Odd got up and headed for the bathroom with his kit. When he returned Ulrich was asleep.

* * *

**Yumi's house, Yumi's bedroom, 8:00 AM:** Yumi awoke and peered down at Jeremy and Aelita. The two of them looked so very peaceful as they slept together. It was a far cry from the state that they were in just last night. Quietly she slipped out of her room and went downstairs. Her parents had already left for work but had left a note indicating that they could stay at home and that the principle had promised to make the schools counselor available to the entire group should they need help. Yumi considered and remembered Jeremy's words to Aelita last night and her reaction. No, she thought Jeremy's got the situation well in hand. She made herself breakfast and sat down on the couch to wait for her two friends to wake up.

After a couple of hours both Jeremy and Aelita came down the stairs. Yumi shepherded them to the kitchen and got some cereal for them to eat. Curious Yumi cautiously asked Aelita what was in her father's note. Jeremy looked suspicious but his face brightened a little when Aelita answered. "It was an apology for starting this whole mess, for dying, and for letting me believe that the recovery program could work on him." At Yumi's quizzical look Aelita explained why the program couldn't bring her father back. Jeremy had to finish her explanation as Aelita broke down and started to cry again. Yumi tried to say she was sorry for bringing it up but was cut off by a hug from Aelita. Jeremy whispered that talking about it was probably the best way to help, even if it hurt her at times. The trio spent the rest of the day together at the hermitage looking for anything salvageable that could give Aelita a more tangible link to her past. It was not an easy day and there wasn't much left but Jeremy secretly took a few pictures that he thought he might be able to save with a little computer time. Afterwards they went to school to meet with the rest of the gang.

* * *

**Factory, Computer lab, 5:00 PM:** Aelita, Yumi, Odd, Ulrich and William were gathered around Jeremy as he checked the results of the superscan. Having found no trace of XANA on the internet he declared XANA dead. The group breathed a collective sigh of relief. All of the fighting, all of the close calls, it was over. They could lead normal healthy lives. All that remained was to decide what to do with the computer. But that could wait one more night. Tonight they would go out and have a great dinner both to celebrate victory and to remember the man who gave his life for theirs.


End file.
